Bedtime Stories
by queroro
Summary: HIATUS. Draco Malfoy has trouble sleeping, and has been so ever since he realised his unrequited love. Or so he thought? Perhaps he simply needs reassurance: enter a storyteller with tales to live and learn from. Or not.
1. Chapter I

September first that year was a rainy day, and also the day that Hogwarts Express leaves King's Cross Station for Hogsmeade Station. As was the norm, Draco got up early to make the journey that starts at exactly eleven o'clock in the morning. Despite the events of last year, he looked forward to the new term, although he wasn't eager to endure the long, monotonous journey northward aboard the scarlet train. Of course he wasn't going to be able to while it away with sleep.

He shook his father's hand and allowed his mother a kiss to his forehead before climbing aboard the train. Same with his previous journeys to and from Hogwarts on this train, he shared a compartment with fellow Slytherins Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise and Pansy. He looked backed to the platform where his parents stood, subtly waving back to his mother and paying his father no mind; Lucius was consulting his pocket watch again, not bothering to look up. Draco shrugged it off; it's not like they were leaving off to fight in a war or something, it was just school. With this thought in mind, he scorned at the other students' parents who were waving enthusiastically at the leaving train.

The journey went on, and as it did, the sky got darker and the rain heavier. Boredom crept up on him as Draco's companions fell asleep one by one. Finally, he was the only one left awake in their compartment, so Draco slid out and began wandering again. He hesitated at first, thinking it might look bad if he were to walk around aimlessly alone, but ultimately decided it was okay as long as he spared everyone he runs into an insult.

He had only gone a few minutes when he spotted a particularly fat gray tabby. It was only minding its own business, pawing a door into one compartment a little way off ahead of him, but Draco just had this urge to go and kick it. Made up his mind to do just that, but was stopped by someone calling his name. He didn't have to turn around to confirm that it was Crabbe, which meant that Goyle had come along, too. They are never going to leave him alone, aren't they?

Nonetheless, he turned to nod at the two fools before turning back to see the cat getting picked up by a pair of hands and disappeared into the compartment. He sighed a little and spun around to walk back up the corridor and met up with the boys who had just showed up to join him. Suddenly, he heard the unmistakable voice of Hermione Granger. He realised that he was glad to hear her voice again, but quickly managed to shake off the feeling. He motioned for Crabbe and Goyle to follow; time to go greet the Golden Trio.

Draco pulled open the compartment door and said in his usual lazy drawl, "Well, look who it is: Potty and the Weasel." He smirked, remembering an article in the Prophet from last week before continuing, "I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley. Did your mother die of shock?"

Weasley was on his feet in a flash, knocking something to the floor which prompted Draco to take a step back. He wasn't going to come in contact with anything that looked that filthy.

Then he heard a noise from further inside the compartment. He spotted a man sleeping at the back. "Who's that?"

"New teacher," Potter answered him. "What were you saying, Malfoy?"

Draco narrowed his eyes at the Boy Who Lived before finally darting them to his dear mudblood. Her eyes shot daggers at him. Ah, so she had fully recovered.

"C'mon," he muttered to the two boys standing on either side of him and left.

Draco chose to stay in his compartment for the rest of the journey. The rain thickened and it got even darker, until now the window was completely black and Draco couldn't see anything through it without straining his eyes. He realised too that they were slowing down. They can't have already arrived, it felt too soon. Why were they stopping?

Draco followed Pansy with his eyes as she stood up from her seat and poked her head out the door. "What's going on?" Blaise was asking. Suddenly, all the light left his vision and he heard Pansy gasp. The train came to a screeching halt, throwing some of the luggage overhead onto the sleeping bodies of Crabbe and Goyle. Draco wisely remained in his seat until his eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to see the outlines of Blaise and the others.

There was something just outside the compartment. It got very cold, and then he saw a black-cloaked figure gliding across their door. He knew this feeling all too well; hopelessness.

The door slid open and a Dementor stood before them. It fell silent, nobody dared to move, until finally the creature turned to leave for the next compartment.

When the lights returned and the train began moving again, they promptly shook themselves out of their trance. Draco was already looking forward to hear what Dumbledore had to say about what just happened.

He hated that he had to walk in the rain from the station to the school carriages. Now he sat in one of them; wet, cold, hungry, and a bit shaken from the Dementor's visit. Draco was in a most foul mood, at least up until he overheard Longbottom saying something as he was getting off his carriage. It was simply delightful news.

"You fainted, Potter? Is Longbottom telling the truth? You actually fainted?" Potter was just getting out of his carriage. Of course he was going to tease Potter about it. In fact, Draco shall taunt him with it for the rest of his miserable life. What's so great about The Boy Who Lived now?

Granted, Dementors _are_ a great deal frightening, but since nobody else was so afraid of them that they fainted, while Potter did, it was only fitting to make a big deal out of it. So Draco shoved past Granger to face the bespectacled boy full in the face as he taunts him. But then the new teacher from before showed up and Draco was deterred.

The Welcoming Feast that followed was otherwise uneventful if not for Draco being distracted the whole time by Granger – or rather, her absence. They were filing into the Great Hall when Draco heard Professor McGonagall's voice calling over the sea of students for both Potter and Granger. Perhaps the professor had been notified about the incident on the train with Potter, but what had Granger gotten herself into? The question kept his attention from the Sorting Hat's song and, later, a greeting from a first-year who had just taken the seat beside him.

It was now midnight, he knew from the distant tolling of bells. It wasn't those bells, or the loud snores of his dorm mates from either side of his bed that kept him awake at night. He had yet to figure out what exactly was the reason for his current state; motionless, his eyes unblinking and his mind a blank. Ultimately, he rose to his feet and got dressed to once again stroll along the corridors and halls of Hogwarts castle.

But when he reached Slytherin dungeon, the fireplace that was supposed to be off was blazing, and there was a voice there. Draco stopped in his tracks and strained his ears to listen in.

It was a girl's voice and she spoke barely above whispering. Draco thought it odd; for one thing, the common room was always empty when he passed it to venture outside at this hour, and for another, he was sure she was talking to herself because he heard no other voice. He poked his head through the doorway and looked to where he heard her voice was coming from.

She was sitting on the floor near the fireplace, and she was indeed alone. She must be mad, talking to herself in the dead of night. Talking to herself, period.

But Draco had not come down here to entertain a mentally challenged brat, so he began making his way out of the room. And while he was at it, Draco thought it best to stay hidden from the stranger, lunatic or otherwise.

He kept to the shadows and tried inching along the walls to get past her, but soon realised that he couldn't manage it after all; a part of the wall just before the passageway that lead outside was fully alight by the fire. Draco contemplated making a dash for it, or to simply return to his room, but he decided instead to just retreat into an alcove and sit down on the floor.

The girl was apparently reading aloud from a storybook – to a cat, no less, which had perched itself in an armchair just in front of her in a rather dignified manner. It was the very same tabby which Draco had wanted to kick earlier on the train ride this afternoon. And the story she was telling was full of utter nonsense; Draco found himself listening to her intently, because here in the safety of this darkness, it was alright for him to actually listen to someone without needing to come up with an insult to shut them up with.

_"…when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waist-coat pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was going to get out again..._"

Utter nonsensical. Of course now he wanted to know what this story was about and what was to become of the reckless girl named Alice. In fact he was so committed to listening to the story, he soon found himself drinking from a bottle which had the words "Drink Me" on it before following Alice through the little door in the wall in hopes of getting out of Wonderland.

"Wait!" he called out to Alice, who was quickly disappearing from view. He kept chasing after her, but suddenly he heard an odd noise. It sounded like some kind of an animal squeaking. He stopped running and looked around, but saw nothing. That was when a hedgehog hit him square in the face, knocking him onto the ground.

Draco groaned as he sat up and started rubbing his eyes. What the bloody Hell just happened? He sat there numbly for a minute, and then realised he had actually fallen asleep on the floor. He quickly turned to check on the girl who was telling, no, reading the story aloud to her cat.

The fire was out and he was now alone in the common the room. He surprised himself when he released a sigh of relief. What was he relieved about again? Hauling himself off the floor, he made a silent promise to return there tomorrow night and see if she was going to read the rest of the story. That must be it, the reason for his newfound relief; no more lonely nights of patrolling the castle afterhours and all the while trying to avoid Filch and his cat.


	2. Chapter II

**_[AN]_**_: My sincerest apologies; this is actually not a new chapter. I recently decided to split the previous two chapters into two. This was actually how it was in the beginning, but now I can't remember why I combined them. However, Gelassenheit's review gave me a reason to stick with the initial plan. So, thank you Gelassenheit, and I'm really sorry everyone. _

* * *

When Draco woke up the next morning, the first thing he realised was that he felt just a little better than he had been in the past few sleepless months. He hadn't had much sleep last night either, of course, but he had slept for _some_ time, at least. But what he wouldn't give to remain asleep in his bed for the rest of the week...

At breakfast in the Great Hall, Malfoy looked up at the ceiling trying to remember how he managed to fall asleep earlier than usual last night, but his mind remained as dull as the sky above him. He thought he had caught a grasp on the answer when he heard Goyle say, "-have you heard the story?" but lost that grasp at the sentence which followed immediately, "Tell them, Malfoy!" and Draco found several faces looking up at him expectantly. What story? The girl who fell down the rabbit hole?

It was Pansy who cleared him of his confusion when she said to the group in general, "-he was so scared, he actually fainted!"

Ah. So they were talking about the little incident on the train. Remembering cheered Draco up considerably; nothing like spreading the story about Saint Potter fainting at the sight of a Dementor to start the first day of term. Potter walked into the Hall just as he got to the part of the story where The Boy Who Lived passed out like the pitiful wizard he really was; Draco acted out the fainting part and it earned him a roar of laughter from his audience.

He may not know the true reasons for which he had been losing sleep over a certain bushy-haired Mudblood, but for his loathing of The Boy Who Wouldn't Die, Draco did. And it's because he was Harry sodding Potter.

Really, how could anyone even think that a little baby had brought down the darkest wizard of all time by his wee little self? And then that same baby went on to isolate himself, growing up away from the Wizarding World only to return to bask in the glory that was never his, strutting around wearing that ridiculous scar like a bloody trophy from some epic battle he did not win! And this same boy had the audacity to refuse _his_ allegiance, a pureblooded Malfoy, yet _still_ people continued to worship that so-called hero!

Draco Malfoy hated Harry Potter with a passion.

He was still thinking about this as he sat in his first class that morning, Arithmancy, the bushy mane of Hermione Granger distracting him largely from Professor Vector's lecture.

Really, what did she see in that Potter boy? Can't she realise how inadequate he is, compared to a pureblooded Malfoy like him? Draco shook his head to get out of it; he would render _himself_ inadequate, questioning these things about some unworthy Mudblood. Tearing his eyes off of her form sitting at the front, he succeeded to bring his focus back to the subject at hand. He always does.

After lunch, Draco set off on the damp grass of the castle grounds with Crabbe and Goyle for their next lesson, Care of Magical Creatures. He simply couldn't fathom how Dumbledore dared let the oaf Hagrid teach the subject. Really, what was the doddering old fool thinking? Draco only agreed most heartily with his father; Hogwarts would be a much better school without Dumbledore as headmaster. He was already taken off of the position last year too, if only Saint Potter hadn't stepped in and acted all heroic again.

The class met Hagrid outside his hut and then followed him to an empty paddock located near the very edge of the Forest. "Everyone gather round the fence here!" the giant called. "That's it – make sure yeh can see. Now, firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books-"

Not only they couldn't understand half of the things he says, he had listed an actual monster of a book as the set textbook for his subject, and then expected them to be able to handle the books when obviously there was no way to go about doing that without first losing an arm.

Draco was still irritated with the fact that that lout had begun teaching classes ("Really, that oaf teaching classes. This place is going to the dogs!"), until he saw Hagrid emerge from the other side of the paddock with a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Draco had ever seen.

They looked like the progeny of a horse and a giant falcon; their hind parts were that of the former, with hair and hooves, while their heads were covered in gleaming feathers, with wings and beaks like those of giant birds of prey. The talons on their front legs were steel-coloured and deadly-looking. Seeing Hippogriffs in the flesh felt very different from merely seeing pictures of them in books, as Draco had. In fact he was very fascinated by them, he silently agreed with Hagrid when the oaf said they were 'beau'iful', although he wouldn't consent to approaching any of the beasts when Hagrid asked for a volunteer.

Quite unsurprisingly, Saint Potter announced that he was up for it. Draco sneered at him as Potter climbed over the paddock fence. He even sent prayers to the heavens that Potter be killed in his bravado.

But Potter didn't wound up being killed; instead, he got treated to a ride on the stormy grey Hippogriff, one lap around the paddock. It set Draco's teeth on edge; again Potter received a great cheer for something he had done quite effortlessly.

Setting his jaw, Draco climbed over the fence and approached the grey Hippogriff that Potter had just rode; Hagrid must have chosen that one for the Golden Boy because it was the least dangerous. So Draco did exactly as Potter had, bowing low and never losing eye-contact. The beast sank onto one knee under Draco's determination, and so he felt safe to proceed and patted its beak.

"This is very easy," Draco drawled, with every intention to have Potter hear him. "I knew it must have been, if Potter could do it," he went on, patting it with disdain. It _was_ easy, just that Potter was the one with the foolish Gryffindor bravery to decide and did it first.

"I bet you're not dangerous at all, are you?" Draco said to the Hippogriff. "Are you, you great ugly brute?"

Then Draco only had time to scream before the beast knocked him onto the ground, and there was a bleeding gash on his arm. He had never seen that much blood flow out of him that he panicked. "I'm dying!" was all he managed to yell. "I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!"

"Yer not dyin'!" he heard the giant say before he felt himself lifted off ground.


	3. Chapter III

**_[AN]_**_: My sincerest apologies; this is actually not a new chapter. I recently decided to split the previous two chapters into two. This was actually how it was in the beginning, but now I can't remember why I combined them. However, Gelassenheit's review gave me a reason to stick with the initial plan. So, thank you Gelassenheit, and I'm really sorry everyone. _

* * *

They reached the hospital wing not five minutes later, but Draco felt as though he had lost all his blood, and that he was surely going to die.

Hagrid laid him onto one of the beds carelessly before calling out for Madam Pomfrey. The panic in his voice must've cautioned her enough that she burst out of her office from the far back, reaching the pair of them in a flash.

"What is it? What's happened?" she asked, with an unnerved tone to match Hagrid's. But she didn't wait for his answer; she found the gash on his arm soon enough, Hagrid still standing as if stupefied beside Draco.

"What happened?" she repeated nonetheless.

Draco was surprised with the strength in his voice, "his Hippogriff, it attacked me! Look, it almost killed me!" he began accusing as the matron looked him over for, Draco suspected with a scorn, other 'more serious' injuries.

"Well, this is nothing you need to worry very much about, dear. It can be fixed quite easily," she said kindly, but Draco refused to just accept it like that. Couldn't she see the damage that had been done on his fine-boned arm?

But Madam Pomfrey _did_ fix it quite easily, and after a dose of some blood-replenishing potion, Draco felt as good as new; as a matter of fact, his arm looked like it was never even touched by the Hippogriff. Nonetheless, Draco insisted that it be bandaged and bound, for it might still be very delicate from recently healing, and he thought he saw something to be gained from this little incident.

So Draco requested, a little severely, of the matron to grant him a sick leave for one whole week. She approved grudgingly in the end, and Draco then set off for the dormitories thinking about spending the entire week in bed. Oh, what fun. And of course, his mother would want to hear about this.

He closed the curtains around his bed later that night and set about writing the letter.

_Dear Mother, _

_I believe I'm going to need more of those sweets you sent me the other day; lessons so far do not agree with me. Namely Care of Magical Creatures on the first morning. And Dumbledore got that oaf Hagrid to teach the class, can you believe that? And now the students are the ones paying for that mistake; I myself had to be put on study leave for an entire week! _

_It was only our first lesson (and I don't doubt it to be our last with that giant playing teacher), and "Professor" Hagrid brought out these nasty Hippogriffs and told us to go and _pet_ them. The next thing I know, one of them just attacked me and I was almost killed by it! They had to get me to the hospital wing because I got seriously injured in the arm (and luckily it wasn't my wand arm) and was losing a lot of blood. _

_My arm is bandaged up and bound now, it'll need time to heal; the matron gave me a week off of lessons and said I needed plenty of rest. They're not even sure if my arm will fully heal into how it used to be. Personally, I think the Hippogriff shouldn't be allowed to stay anywhere near the castle; chances are high that it might attack other students. _

_I look forward to those sweets then. And I promise I won't do anything stupid to worsen my condition, so you needn't worry much. I hope all is well at home. _

It was some time later, as he stared into the roof of his four-poster, listening to the sounds of his sleeping roommates, that he remembered the girl in the common room from last night. He jolted upright and peeked out from behind his curtains to check on the other boys; none of them knew about his trouble with sleeping and Draco had no intention of having any of them find out.

Five minutes later, he managed to successfully sneak out of the room without any of his roommates being nosy about it.

Draco walked down the passage as quietly as he had trained himself to be but, faintly, he felt his heart sinking as he was slowly approaching the Slytherin dungeon; it was unnaturally silent and he couldn't make out any sign of firelight coming from the end of the passage – the common room appeared to be completely deserted.

He reached it with a frown on his face. Was he never going to hear what was to be the end of that reckless Alice? He walked across the room to the unlit fireplace. _"She sat right here last night," _he thought to himself.

His eyes then found the other passage that led away from the common room; the one that leads to the girls' dormitories. He can't have dreamt it; he had been awake the whole time, and Draco was sure he had known her from somewhere before, too. He turned from the hearth and found the spot where he had hidden himself in the previous night. "It can't have merely been a dream," he murmured quietly to no one in particular.

Draco felt a little agitated now. Malfoys simply do not imagine things, not even when they'd been deprived of sleep.

"_No, they don't lose sleep over some Mudblood either," _and Draco squashed the little voice mercilessly.

But he knew that the voice was right. What was he even doing here? He was just about to leave when he suddenly heard the girl's voice again. She spoke merely above whisper, but in the silence, she was louder than the rumbling in the skies beyond. The bells tolled in the distance as if announcing her arrival.

So she shows up only at midnight. How curious.

"Now then, cat, if you keep holding me up like that, chances are we're not going to finish the story in time. I mean, honestly..." was the only thing she said that made sense at all to him; the rest of her rambling was simply incoherent, and of no importance to him. Draco sat down in the alcove again while she lit the fire and settled herself down. He really wanted to see if the cat behaved at all like it understood anything she was saying to it, but Draco sat with his back to the pair, so he could find out. Briefly he thought about finding a better hiding spot for the next night.

"So where did we last left off, cat? Ah, yes. So Cheshire just appeared, and they were asking Alice how best to remove it. Do you need reminding on what her answer was, cat?"

Draco desperately hoped for the cat to answer her, "yes," but of course that was not possible.

Why in the blazes was she even talking to that non-sentient creature in the first place?

But then he was quite surprised by its meowing as if in answer to her question.

"Alright then. So _when Alice got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable._

_The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said._

_The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at _his_ time of life._

_The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense._

_The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)_

_Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to the Duchess: you'd better ask _her_ about it.'_

_`She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner: `fetch her here.' And the executioner went off like an arrow._

_The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he returned, the Cat had disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game... _Say, cat, do you think you could learn this evaporating skill if I ever found a book on it in the library and read it to you?" she concluded the chapter with this question meant for her grey tabby sitting in the armchair – Draco chanced a peek at the two of them.

The cat meowed again and Draco, smiling to himself, translated the reply in his head, _"maybe." _

What was the title of this story anyway?

"...yes, I think that would do nicely," she was saying now, and Draco returned his attention to her voice, "anyway, cat, now we'll listen to The Mock Turtle's Story." The cat meowed. "Oh, of course there's no such thing, cat, it's just a story." It meowed again. "Well we'll know what it is if you would please sit up and listen," she told the cat a little impatiently.

Draco dismissed his astonishment at her apparent understanding in the cat's 'speech' and shifted his legs to seat himself more comfortably as she began reading the next chapter.

He sat quite still for the most part, holding back chuckles and grinning at times while she read. But at one point, the character Alice was introduced to a 'Gryphon', "_-lying fast asleep in the sun. _You've never seen a Gryphon before, have you not?" The cat meowed. "Well you're lucky then, cat. Look, here's a picture of it."

Draco couldn't help but turn around to see what she was showing to the cat; he only saw her holding the book up to the cat seated in the armchair, but he couldn't see the pages of the book itself. Frowning slightly, he turned away from the storyteller and tried to conjure up his own image of the creature 'Gryphon'.

Somehow, he saw the image of the Hippogriff that attacked him earlier in place of the Gryphon. He scoffed. _"Very well," _thought Draco.

Before long, her voice started to sound like it was coming from within his head.

"_Beautiful soup, so rich and green,_

_Waiting in a hot tureen..." _

He bet the soup couldn't be quite edible, being green. Unless it was actually asparagus, but those aren't beautiful. Anyway, they're not very green.

The Gryphon, whom in Draco's head took the shape of the Hippogriff, Buckles or something, picked up the ladle that lay beside the bubbling cauldron. Draco was thoroughly amazed to see that it could manage very well with properly holding said ladle, in despite of having talons and everything. 'Buckles' stirred the creamy green liquid within the cauldron as it continued singing to the soup:

_`Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,_

_Game, or any other dish?_

_Who would not give all else for two_

_Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?_

_Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?_

_Beau-ootiful Soo-oop!_

_Beau-ootiful Soo-oop!_

_Soo-oop of the e-e-evening,_

_Beautiful, beauti—ful soup!'_


End file.
